New deaths have been reported at Narbethong where eight people
died and Yarra Glen which has one fatality.

The toll for St Andrews has been revised down from 10 to
six.

A total of 19 people have been killed in Gippsland, with nine
fatalities in the town of Callignee and one in Upper Callignee.

And much worse is still to come. The
Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, said: "Hell in all its fury has
visited the good people of Victoria in the last 24 hours, and many
good people now lie dead; many others lie injured.

"I fear in the days ahead that the news is going to be bad and,
I believe, the nation needs to prepare itself as full facts become
known," he said.

There were 31 active fires across the state as of 7.20am
today, with five - at Beechworth, Churchill, Murrindindi, the
Kinglake complex and Bunyip - causing the most concern.

Strike teams are also working between Buxton, Marysville
and Narbethong to clear access along roadsides into properties.

Among the first victims identified last night were Channel
Nine's former chief newsreader Brian
Naylor, 78, of Kinglake West, and his wife, Moiree. Their
daughter-in-law, who lived across the road, is believed to have
survived with her two children. The first victim named was Peter
Avola of Strathewen. And slowly, but surely, the names of the many
other victims trickled in. Rae Carter of St Andrews. George Jackson
of St Andrews. John and Sue Wilson, whose home at Barwidgee Creek
was destroyed.

Among the missing were the former Blue Heelers actor Reg
Evans.

The towns of Kinglake and Marysville have been wiped out as if
they had been bombed, and authorities are treating the disaster
like a terrorist attack, with more than 330,000 hectares
of land affected.

Almost half of Victoria may be declared a crime scene, with arsonists
believed responsible for several of the fires. Police said an
offender implicated in the fatal fires could be charged with the
offence of arson causing death, a crime with a maximum penalty of
25 years in jail.

NSW was lucky to escape. Despite more than 50 fires blazing,
there has been no loss of life or property, although one man was
charged with arson over a blaze in Peats Ridge, on the Central
Coast.

Marie Jones of Canberra, who was visiting a friend at Kinglake,
said a badly burnt man had arrived at the property where she was
staying with his infant daughter, and told her his wife and other
child had been killed.

"He was so badly burnt. . . . his little girl was burnt, but not
as badly as her dad, and he just came down and he said, 'Look, I've
lost my wife, I've lost my other kid, I just need you to save [my
daughter]'," Ms Jones said.

More than 70 people died in the Black Friday fires of 1939, and
75 on Ash Wednesday in 1983 - 47 of them Victorians. Senior police
sources told the Herald they feared the final figure would
be double that.

The military has been put on stand-by to provide assistance.

The first of several interstate victim identification teams
arrived yesterday to help Victoria Police and coronial staff under
a terrorist contingency plan framed in response to the September 11
terrorist attacks of 2001.

Bodies in burnt-out cars will have to be removed first so that
roads can be opened to the public before gutted buildings can be
combed for remains of the missing. Victoria's morgue was full last
night - and hospitals and universities were being asked to store
bodies until formal identifications could be made.

Some of the 80 people in hospital were not expected to survive.
Ten people remain in a critical condition.

The once pretty alpine town of Marysville was reduced to a
tangled mess of smoking rubble and twisted iron.

Most residents were evacuated to nearby Alexandra, which was
under threat from fire last night.

But some of those who left too late or stayed to fight the fire
lost their lives.

The fire that began at the old Murrindindi sawmill near Yea
earlier on Saturday raced across the Black Spur and razed the
hamlet of Narbethong and then Marysville, house by house, street by
street.

After one terrible hour Marysville was no more. Few buildings
escaped. Every public building - including the police station, post
office, telephone exchange - and the much-loved guest houses and a
hotel, had been destroyed. Worse was the fact that some of the
gutted cars and buildings had human remains in them.

Names were unavailable last night but the few residents who
stayed and survived talked numbly yesterday of one firefighter's
family being killed, of an age pensioner dying at home and of cars
being found with human remains in them. They hoped the toll was as
few as five - but it could be much higher, they said.

Leigh Jowett, a third-generation resident, saved the old house
he had grown up in - then helped his neighbours save theirs. "There
might only be 15 or 20 houses left in Marysville," Mr Jowett said.
"There's only three left in Falls Road - and the whole main street
is gone apart from one motel."